Are In App Purchases getting out of hand

[theENIGMATRON]

http://www.gamers-pad.co.uk/?p=3817&preview=true

Whats your thought?

[DJ-Daz]

It reduces piracy (I hope)
So for small teams of developers like InfiniteStateGames it can only be a good thing.

But it's annoying to download what looks on the face of it to be free.

[theENIGMATRON]

Thats not the point i was making,
I hope it never come across like that.

Foe what charlie has done, is correct. Free game and a small fee to continue the enjoyment of the game.

Other games are free for the first level, then you end up paying 0.69 for the next level, then another 0.69 for the next level and so on and so on, Not never maps Levels.

Or also i forgot to touch on,
Paid games that you have to buy MORE to progress in the game,
Or Paid games with Adverts.

The reason i was brining it up, is there was a game i was playing Free.
I loved it, paid a little to continue on, and before i know it i was FORCED to pay more to carry on playing......
A continues payment i order to progress through the game,

The money you won / earned for winning level never was enough to progress on.

It was not even a Map Pack,

[InfiniteStates]

I'm afraid this is the business model of the future, but at the moment it is in a lawless transitory state. It basically boils down to how cunty to the developer wants to be.

You can blame three sets of people for this trend...

1. Marketplace owners (Apple/Google/etc) for making download quantity such a highly dominant metric in an app's visibilty.

2. Big publishers for flooding these markets with big names for next to no money, e.g. Battlefield on iOS for £0.69p. How the fuck can anyone else compete? Although I suppose that's the idea...

3. Gamers for expecting the world on a stick for free or near as dammit. Most guys on this forum would gladly pay the price of a Snickers bar for a good game, but that is an exception - not the rule. You have no idea the pissing and moaning you get for daring to charge above zero from the majority.

So point 2 feeds into point 3 (i.e. big publishers have lowered the expectations of gamers), and point 3 feeds into point 1 (i.e. you get little to no downloads if you charge above nothing, and no downloads gets you no visibility. Even if you have nothing but over 30 5* reviews).

So where does that leave the little guy? IAP or sales (e.g. selling for free for a limited period). And even this barely viable revenue stream is being destroyed by greedy fucktards who want to add an extension to their already large house of cash, by exactly the sort of behaviour Dave is talking about.

Mike wrote an interesting blog post about how we decided to monetise Frutorious:
http://infinitestategames.com/2012/08/3 ... rutorious/

However, research shows that you only get a 1~2% return rate on IAP (i.e. only 1 or 2 people in 100 will actually bother buying IAP), although people who do buy it, tend to buy it repeatedly. This low hit rate means that IAP pretty much only works if you are getting huge download numbers. I think Frutorious has been downloaded maybe 1000 times or so...? 1% of not a lot is fuck all.

So we decided to make it paid, and again Mike wrote a great little post about that too:
http://infinitestategames.com/2012/10/1 ... ting-paid/

But at the end of the day, the morals of IAP behaviour are very much in contention at the moment, and it is ultimately down to the app developers to not be wankers about it.

[DJ-Daz]

I'm curious though Charlie, do you make enough from IAP or upfront purchases to make a living? Or can you just about afford a cheap TV?

What were the production costs of your titles combined?
I'll understand if you don't want to divulge any info, I am curious, not nosey.

[theENIGMATRON]

Yer i can see alot of benefits from a popular game
or any game to be honest.

I just think they are getting some what greedy.

I am pretty happy to pay upto 7.99 for a top end title
But i dont want to pay that and be prompted with Adds or Ingame purchases.

They should offer 3 version,
a Paid outright game, No Adds, No in-app purchases.
in app purchases version, so you can progress as much as you want to pay.
Subscription based where they charge like £2 a month or w/e is acceptable.

I have wild blood, paid out 4.99 or 5.99 cannot recall.
In app purchases if you want to upgrade weapons, ingame coins dont cover it.... FFS!!!

And Every bodys golf or something.
Great game, Pay £2 a month of £1 cannot recall to play the unlimited version.

I just find too many Devs going out for everything they can and putting there users off.

Allthough i did no find your In-app purchases bad Charlie, i found them reasonable.

I think it should be monitored if its being used.

[DJ-Daz]

What about games that require massive amounts of money to progress?
Games like Tiny Tower. OK so you might not need to spend even one penny, but to really accomplish anything you do need to spend something. This might be a bad example. There are games that are far worse than this. I've seen some that accept as much as £5,000 I think.

[InfiniteStates]

I'm curious though Charlie, do you make enough from IAP or upfront purchases to make a living? Or can you just about afford a cheap TV?

Not even a cheap TV.

Frutorious hasn't even made $100 and it's been out since September. All my 4 apps in total make between £40 and £80 per month, but the biggest earner by far is a crappy MH Tri Game FAQ type thing I put out as my first experiment, which is still on there at £1.49 or whatever the tier 2 price is these days. The games shift fuck all units, doing maybe 3-5 downloads per month.

There is no way there is a living to be had when you try and "do it right" and not screw people in the disgusting way I'm hearing you two post about. And the worse thing is, you get no kudos for not being a cunt. These people are abusing their visibility for maximum short term gain.

I like to think that people who treat their customers this way will soon burn out and make way for those of us that don't. But sadly I don't think this will be the way. Gamers don't care about the companies behind the games - they take each game at face value. They won't care that the newest shiny game with pretty graphics is made by the same company that fucked them out of £X last time. Sure one or two might, but not the market as a whole. Christ, most gamers don't even know the difference between a publisher and a developer...

And so this behaviour will continue, while the honest little guys get no where.

[DJ-Daz]

The kind of attitude you have is great for face to face retail, it really build a rapport with customers.

But this is different like you said, being nice gets you nowhere, maybe it's time to circle strafe with a chainsaw?

[theENIGMATRON]

I actually believe this move with In-App Purchases is increasing piracy not reducing it as to what it should.

I am a honest guy when it comes down to my phone, I find a game or app i like i pay for it.
Am happy to pay upto 1.99 for a decent game / app
and upto 5ish for a good game, graphics and 3D.

But am finding myself doing more and more of the following, because i dont know how much this Game is going to cost me to complete.
Face Value game of 1.99 you can play it to the end, No Adds nothing,
Nice and simple.

now i get a game, Free or 0.69
But after you buy one in-app purchase bringing the game to 1.69
you dont know if you are going to be faced with another one down the line.

So i now find myself doing two things.
Using a cheat engine, to find a static value of the coins generated
and increase it to a figure i like.
If its not a static figure, i know ways to find a float value and convert it.
Or use a SQL Explorer on the phone as some games store the data in there.
Facing that you can simple just Hex edit the game and find what you want to unlock it.

I also use Lucky Patcher to remove Adds from the game.

Before all this ingame shop crap i would of never bothered.
I download a game, i dont like it, i get a refund.

I keep it i support the Devs

The crap thing i find about changing values of coins, is not so much your having the Devs off.
It ruins the game as you have taken pretty much the whole objective away.

For Android i have seen a MASSIVE high increase in app
being released by Warez sites with In-app Purchases pre hacked.

I personally think it should go back to how it was, One Demo One Full game. Simples.

[DJ-Daz]

That's all well and good Dave for you and me, but what about small indie's like Charlie and the gang.

They need IAP to even get noticed, if they tack a price if 69pence on the store, they know they'll be overlooked for the free games.

So they release a game for free and charge a minimal fee for extras that only help the gamer get to the end, you don't need the IAP to complete the game! Even then they're getting shafted by people who just want the next franchise game.

iOS used to be a great platform for the indies, now it's just another platform where the indies get pushed out by the franchises.

Gamers are being brainwashed into thinking that ONLY franchise games are any good.

To be noticed, the indie titles has to be standout, amazing, fun, different, free and heavily publicised to get anywhere.
Frutorious is all that, it just hasn't had the publicity to help it get noticed above the shit. This is where facebook and twitter integration comes in. Get friends of friends interested by noticing the game in the first place.

[theENIGMATRON]

I think it falls to the type of person.
I would prefer to pay for the app than to have a free version.

Free mean for 99.9% its contains ingame adds!!!

Most annoying thing in the world.

I do see the issue with the constant battle.
I would say Free for X Period to get noticed, and get reviews then put a charge on the game

That way you may have like 20 - 50 Positive reviews for a app that costs 69p
And i love seeing paid apps that have high ratings means it worth the dollar.

[InfiniteStates]

^Spot on Daz

...I am a honest guy when it comes down to my phone, I find a game or app i like i pay for it.
Am happy to pay upto 1.99 for a decent game / app
and upto 5ish for a good game, graphics and 3D...

You are the exception though Dave, not the rule. And until these markets change so that quality becomes the metric that makes you visible instead of download quantity, you can't win by just making a good game.

EDIT: although even if the store ordered by star rating ratio instead of downloads, you would still get publishers just hiring people to give 5* reviews...

EDIT2: but that's kind of off topic. Dave's original gripe is legitimate... Some devs (or publishers?) are being cunts about IAP, and there is no way to know up front if it will happen.

The only solution I can see is for the games to be policed by the community: if you find a game that abuses IAP, give it a crap rating and mention it's IAP abuse in a review.

Another method you could potentially use is look at the top selling IAP chart (dunno if Android has something similar). If it's a coin pack or equivalent, you know it's gonna be one of those games...

[DJ-Daz]

^Spot on Daz

Nice to know I do get things right occasionally.

[theENIGMATRON]

The only solution I can see is for the games to be policed by the community: if you find a game that abuses IAP, give it a crap rating and mention it's IAP abuse in a review.

Totally agree, but the fucked up community give a 4 star rating,
Saying great game but IAP is ridiculs

Instead of giving it a 1 star and saying great game BUT.

Fact there still getting good ratings the Devs will never change it,
Its a Catch 22 situation